Windows – How to get rid of random “ghost” monitors and weird behavior with graphics adapter

graphics cardmultiple-monitorswindows 10

Some time ago, my graphics adapter randomly started to behave very weird. I was at work when suddenly my computer did what happens when you unplug a HDMI cable from your pc (going black for a split second and then reorganizing the screen). I found this very weird, so I did some research. After messing around I suddenly saw the following:

enter image description here

So… 4 extra screens popped up out of nowhere! Also when I look at my device manager I see this:

enter image description here

which is Dutch, it says "generic non-PnP monitor/screen" and "generic PnP monitor/screen". I am working from my laptop with one external screen (so two screens in total). Also, when I plug in a hdmi cable, sometimes the external screen doesn't work when I put it the screen settings on "duplicate screen" but then it only works when I put it on "external screen only". Who knows what's going on? I already did a driver update and restarted my laptop several times, even took out the battery.

Edit

I reinstalled my Intel HD Graphics driver but I still get 4 extra screens. Hope someone can help since it bothers me a lot!

Edit 2

I accepted h3rat's answer for now because that made me get rid of the random extra monitors! Still weird, and if anyone actually knows what causes this problem I'm glad to hear! What I did was delete my new Intel graphics drivers (both from my installed programs and in the graphics adapters section in device manager), installed the older version as noticed by h3rat. After that the monitors were still there, I deleted them in control panel, restarted again and sicne then they don't pop up anymore and everything seems to be fine. Would still like to have an answer why this actually happens!

Edit 3

Aaand they randomly popped back again. Still looking for a solution!

Edit 4

I downloaded the Intel driver updater tool (http://intel.ly/1JSiYxj) and there were two new display drivers available which I installed. Immediately after that the gost monitors were gone which is great!

Best Answer

Related Question